A drawback that inhibits wide adoption of electric vehicles is the lack of infrastructure for conveniently charging them; and while hybrid electric vehicles are increasingly popular, plug-in versions that operate to maximize use of their battery and minimize use of their gasoline-fueled generator are rare, in part due to the same lack of pervasive infrastructure.
Provision of a vehicle charging infrastructure is inhibited by complexity: Such infrastructure is expensive, typically requiring not only provision of power, but also of communication services that (if and when available) represent an ongoing operational expense. In some cases, wired communication channels can be used to allow a charging station to communicate with external systems, for example, a merchant bank for clearing credit and debit card transactions. However, that suggests a pervasive communications infrastructure for every charging station. While wireless technologies can be employed for such communication channels in some circumstances, in some cases they are difficult to configure and make reliable, for example, in subterranean parking structures and some city streets where the positions of vans and trucks might screen a transceiver from a communication signal. Such wireless communications may be expensive. Other efforts to provide communication through the power grid require extensive, pervasive, and expensive changes to the grid itself, in order to make such communication available wherever needed.
While the need to address these issues with respect to electric vehicle charging has generated the following solution, the solution itself is more generally applicable, for example to other forms of vehicle fueling.